にかけられた

[thetazuo]

それは、背筋が凍るほどに美しい少女だった。
とはいえ、背筋が凍るほど……という形容が、その麗しさのみにかけられた言葉でないことは、彼女と対峙した者ならば一瞬のうちに理解できるだろう。笑みの形に作られた表情から感じ取れるのは、親愛の情や歓喜の色ではなく、絶対的な捕食者の余裕と、肌がちりつくような緊張感のみだった。

Hi. What does the bold かける mean? I know it roughly means 形容している but I can’t find this definition in any dictionary.
掛ける／懸ける（かける）の意味 - goo国語辞書
かける originally means “hang”. I have a hard time understanding how come “hang” can become 形容.

Thank you.

 

[taked4700]

I think you are right in thinking かけるmeans 形容している.
The move of hanging is metaphorically to modify. For example, you hang a piece of red cloth over the table, then the red cloth becomes a part of the table set which consists of a table and red cloth. In other words, the red cloth modifies the table set.
You can think that to hang something on or at some other thing is a process to make two things one entity as a whole by putting something on or at the other thing physically side by side at a near position.

 

[Flaminius]

Why is it not in the dictionary? Because a more general usage assigns the "to modify" sense to the intransitive version, 掛かる (Sense 25). It is used as follows:
[inanimate noun denoting a part of speech or a phrase or a clause]が[another indaposoapoac]にかかる

I am more comfortable with その麗しさのみにかかる言葉 because かけられた言葉 sounds as if there were someone other than the narrator of this novel who said それは、背筋が凍るほどに美しい少女だった. But it probably matters very little since the author is already analyzing their own words as someone else's. A mere word won't change that.

If you are wondering why the 'modify' sense is borne by かかる~かける, refer to 掛かる (Sense 10) 他から作用・動作が及ぶ. You may also find it useful to learn the 'work upon something' sense of かける:
検査にかける, 拷問にかける

Or, the fact that 2×3 is read 2かける3, although which is the operator (multiplier) and which is the operand (multiplicand) are considerably unclear due to the commutative nature of multiplication.

 

[thetazuo]

Thank you both.

indaposoapoac

By this do you mean “inanimate noun denoting a part of speech or a phrase or a clause”?

 

[Flaminius]

Yes.

 

[thetazuo]

Got it.